I see your point, but it's not as straight forward as you think. You can't play youth just to play youth. They have to be good enough. For example I personally never thought Brahim was good enough to be playing for us. He has potential, but he clearly needed to be out playing in loan weekly for a year or 2 before coming back to test his mettle.Is Pep too focussed on winning everything while he is here, that he isn’t considering the longer term future of the club and if it was any other manager, would the bird expect a manager to do more for our youth?
I can’t see it happening because Pep seems to want to win win win but I wish more youth could be given a chance, in order to stop the pattern of excellent young players leaving us.
Pep argued that we’d done everything possible to persuade Brahim and Jadon to stay, but obviously, what was missing was game time.
I think Pep wants to win every trophy, maybe to be the first to get all 5, but surely we can attempt this and still give game time to younger players. Giving them game time to keep them with us is important in the progression of our squad for the next few years, but I fear Pep is only really interested in the here and now, in his own personal success, and not making decisions that are really in the longer term interests of our club.
In cup games against significantly weaker teams we could give game time to 4-6 younger players on rotation alongside back up first team players with an example line up of:
MURIC
DANILO
ZINCHENKO
SANDLER
OTAMENDI
GOMES
GUNDOGAN
FODEN
MAHREZ
JESUS
POVEDA
In premier league games against bottom quarter teams, particularly at home we could give game time to 1-2 youth players alongside 1st choice players and back up players with an example line up of:
EDERSON
WALKER
STONES
SANDLER
MENDY
FERNANDINHO
KDB
FODEN
MAHREZ
AGUERO
JESUS
Those teams should have more than enough to beat teams of that level, and you could almost put Arteta in charge of the team when it comes to those games to give him some front line experience.
It would give first team players more chance to be match fit and firing for bigger games and give the younger players a chance and a belief that they can break through. I’d rather win 2-0 against burton Albion, giving youth players a chance, then 9-0 with players who later in the season lose in a champions league 1/4 final because we’re not quite on it. We might not set another goal scoring record, but I’d have sacrificed that too to have Sancho and Díaz on the edge of our XI now.
I’d rather we focussed our first XI on winning the premier league and Champions league, keeping them at an elite level of fitness for those matches and trusting the youth players in the cups. But my fear is that our switch to having performance related contracts, means we can’t rotate this much anymore, and the first XI want to play in every game to end up walking home with the salary that they feel they deserve or they could go and get it elsewhere.
But in the end he got into games and had a few good dribbles and fans were bending over backwards to point out the few positives. Yeah,those positives were there, he is fucking talented. We all know that. But should he be starting a game here right now? The answer for me every time he played was NO. His decision making simply wasn't up to par.
That's from lack of playing time and being anxious to impress. Something loans tend to help you resolve.
If it's Messi like youth, he'll play. Otherwise, get in line.
There are internationals like, Sane, Gabriel, Mahrez and Gundogan struggling to get a start. Absent exceptionalism I'm not really for starting youth just to do so. They have to be better first